“So prevailing is the disposition of man to quarrel and shed blood, so prone is he to divisions and parties, that even the ancient natives of this little spot [Nantucket Island] were separated into two communities, inveterately waging war against each other like the more powerful tribes of the continent…. Behold the singular destiny of the human kind, ever inferior in many instances to the more certain instinct of animals, among which the individuals of the same species are always friends, though reared in different climates…”

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur Letters from an American Farmer

In my latest National Post column I ask whether we couldn’t keep just one platform for the cutesy puppy pix and confine the rage and messaging to the entire rest of the Internet.

“The man who is master of his passions is Reason’s slave.”

Cyril Connolly, quoted in Globe & Mail July 28, 1999

In my latest Epoch Times column I say it’s time to take a frank look at what worked and what didn’t in our response to SARS-CoV-2, with the “shut up and mask” consensus that no one should ask questions in a crisis definitely in the latter category.

“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.”

James Byrnes, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 7, 2007

“The best doctors in the world, are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.”

Jonathan Swift, quoted in Dale Carnegie How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (though Carnegie says Swift himself was “the most devastating pessimist in English literature” so not prone to taking his own advice on cheerfulness and health).

“In nine cases out of ten the human race does not know why it disapproves of cannibalism, but I know why I disapprove of it. I disapprove because I believe that man is the image of God…”

G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 # 3 (Dec. 2001)

“Mick Jagger told me that the lines on his face were laughter lines, but nothing is that funny.”

British jazz singer George Melly, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail August 4, 2005